Chapter Six
24/06/2019. 21:50 hours. San Quentin State Prison, California.
Mel slumped into the swivel chair behind her multiple monitors with a sigh, a steaming mug of coffee grasped between her hands. The grainy footage on the screens showed that all of the inmates had been locked down for the night. Her green eyes scanned the screens until they fell upon a screen that had gone blank. She frowned and leaned forward, setting her mug down on the desk. She retrieved her radio from her belt and pressed the button in to talk, her eyes never leaving the screen.
"This is Carter to Death Row, come in." She was met with the hissing sound of static. "Carter to Death Row, do you read me?" With an exasperated groan, Mel clipped her radio back to her belt and came to her feet. She unsheathed her flashlight and briskly made her way to Death Row.
Once she reached Death Row, Mel was met with the typical wolf whistles and goading comments from the inmates. She rolled her eyes and tutted at the inmate making vulgar gestures at her. She spotted a light filtering into the corridor from under the door leading to the death chamber. Her brow furrowed as she silently crept towards the door, keeping the beam from her flashlight pointed down so as not to draw attention to herself. She took a tentative step forward and peered through the door. Her mouth instantly went dry and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of a man in a dark purple button up shirt, black dress trousers and Chucks bound to the gurney, an IV snaking out of the crook of his elbow and his face covered. Mel's eyes widened as she realised that she was looking at Dr Reid. Her thoughts began to race as she tried to understand what was happening. The FBI agent was surrounded by correctional officers and... Warden Michaels. Mel backed away as quietly as possible, zoning out the continued jeers from the inmates. Once safely away from Death Row, she fled towards the reception where she had been monitoring the cameras.
As Mel approached her monitors, she caught sight of a group of people approaching at speed. She immediately noticed that they were wearing FBI-issue bullet vests. She did not hesitate for one moment to unlock the door and allow them to enter.
"I'm Officer Melanie Carter. Do you work with Dr Reid?" Emily stiffened, her palm resting on the handle of her Glock 17.
"Yes. I'm SSA Emily Prentiss of the Behavioural Analysis Unit. My colleagues here are SSAs Jareau, Rossi, Alvez, Simmons and Dr Lewis. We're looking for Dr Reid. We have received video surveillance of Dr Reid being brutally beaten and raped on a cell block." Mel's mouth dropped open in horror, her shaking hand coming up to stifle a gasp.
"Dr Reid is currently in the execution chamber on Death Row. I-I just went down there to find out why the camera had stopped working and saw him. There were some other officers and Warden Michaels. I got out of there as quick as I could to get back here and call someone." Emily's dark eyes narrowed, searching Mel's face for any signs of deceit but there were none. She was genuinely traumatised by what she had seen. Emily reached out and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You're doing great. How many exits are there to the chamber?"
"Two. There's the one directly through Death Row, and there's another through the viewing room."
"Okay. I need you to show us how to get to there." Mel swallowed hard and nodded.
Steeling herself, she guided the agents with only her flashlight to the fork in the corridors where Death Row was separated from visiting entrance to the execution area. She stopped to face the group, dust swirling in the dim beam of light.
"The entrance via Death Row is to your right. Follow the corridor all the way along. You'll see it." Emily glanced at Matt, Luke and Tara.
"You guys take that corridor. We'll take the visitor entrance," instructed Emily, tucking her ear piece into her left ear.
"Just ignore the men when you pass. They can't be heard in the chamber," said Mel, her voice trembling. Matt, Luke and Tara nodded and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor, their guns pointed in front of them. With a tilt of her head, Mel indicated for the others to follow her. The atmosphere was silent, save for the occasional squeak of a shoe against linoleum. They did not have to go far before they reached the viewing room. Mel turned to Emily, David, and JJ. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
"I'm sorry you had to watch your friend go through that. If I had seen that, I would have contacted someone, jumped in, something. They had me posted on C block until 21:45 hours. Please, save him. I don't think I can see what they're doing to him. What they've done to him." JJ gave her a wry smile.
"We will. You just wait out here and monitor the situation from out here," answered JJ. Mel gave the blonde a jerky nod and made her way back towards the fork. Emily gently pushed down on the cold steel of the door handle and found the door easily came open. The trio stepped inside the room to find the black velour curtains had been pulled open. It was as though their hearts stopped in synchronicity as they glanced through the perspex window.
There was a tall, thin man bound to the gurney by thick leather straps. His hands twisted and turned in the cuffs to try and free himself, and his head rocked from side to side to dislodge the black hood over his head. An IV was taped into his arm, leading to a bag filled with clear liquid. His button up shirt had been opened and several electrodes were stuck to his bare, heaving chest and attached to a monitor that beeped rapidly in time with his heart. The silver-haired man stood next to the gurney with his arms folded across his chest and a malicious smile in his face averted his attention from his prisoner to the faces at the window. Two officers stood nearby, one with large syringe in their hands.
"Welcome to San Quentin, agents! You made it in time to watch Dr Reid's execution! Please, take a seat. Get comfortable. It's going to be a wild ride."
"Michaels, you don't need to do this! Please, let Dr Reid go," pleaded Emily.
"Oh, but I do. He's responsible for my brother's death. He put my brother on Death Row."
"No, he didn't. Dr Reid only arrested him. That's it. He's not responsible for the decision made by the courts," responded JJ. Michaels' right eye twitched with frustration. The agents were holding him back. He audibly gritted his teeth and squared his jaw.
"Take the hood off. Let him see his team mates before he goes under," snarled Michaels. The officer not holding the syringe tugged the hood away from Spencer's head, ruffling his already wild curls. His hair clung to the tears already drying to his face. JJ clamped a palm to her mouth to stifle a sob at the sight of Spencer's bruised and bloody face. A long strip of duct tape kept him silent. The gurney was tilted up so that Spencer could see through the window. His brow furrowed in despair and his terrified hazel pools filled with more tears, his pleas lost into the gag and his limbs pulling against his restraints.
"Any last words, Dr Reid? Oh, wait. You can't." Michaels chuckled to himself. "Say goodbye to your team." The unshed tears released from the corner of Spencer's eye, tracing down his cheek and over the tape. Michaels gave a silent nod to the officer with the syringe who clicked the one labelled sodium thiopental was connected to the port on the IV. As the officer quickly pressed on the plunger, forcing the liquid through the tubing, Emily caught sight of Matt, Luke and Tara advancing on Michaels. The syringe was partially emptied into the cannula and instantly, Spencer's eyes fluttered shut and his breathing slowed, head lolling limply to the side. Michaels turned at the sound of approaching feet, his hand on his firearm. As he began to draw it from the holster, Luke fired a single shot into the warden's chest. At the sight of Michaels crumpling to the ground, blood rapidly staining his crisp white button up, the two officers dropped to their knees and laced their fingers behind their heads. The partially filled syringe was thrown to the floor. Emily, JJ and David darted into the room as Tara and Matt set about cuffing the officers and leading them out of the room. Luke curled his lip into a sneer as he stared down into the glassy open eyes of the deceased warden. Emily wasted no time in peeling the tape away from Spencer's mouth whilst JJ unbuckled his restraints and David ripped out the IV. As soon as he was free, he was dragged to floor, EKG leads tearing out of the machine so that it gave a high pitched wail. JJ gently tilted Spencer's head back with two fingers under the sharp point of his chin and a palm on his forehead. Emily knelt down beside the unconscious genius and swept her raven-black hair out of her face as she leaned down, her ear hovering over Spencer's mouth, eyes fixed on the unmoving chest. No breath misted against her cheek. She straightened and pressed two fingers into the bruising throat to find that Spencer's pulse was barely there.
"He's not breathing and pulse is almost none-existent," reported Emily, the slight quaver in her voice betraying her stoic mask. She folded her hands on top of each other in the centre of Spencer's chest and began pumping furiously, counting each compression out to no one in particular. JJ pinched his nostrils together, sealing her lips around Spencer's and forced breaths into him. David directed a pair of medics into the room who immediately darted to the unconscious man and plucked the leads off his chest and attached their own to the discs still stuck to the cool and clammy skin. The green line on the monitor slowly jumped. His heart rate sat at thirty-two, triggering an alarm. A blood pressure cuff was wrapped around his left bicep and an oxygen monitor clipped to the tip of the index finger of his right hand. Another alarm sounded at the dangerously low oxygen levels.
JJ was less than gently shoved to the side, which would normally have irked her, but with the seriousness and urgency of the situation, she understood completely. The medic at Spencer's head quickly and expertly slid a thick plastic tube down the young man's throat and connected a large silicone bag, squeezing it to force air into Spencer's lungs.
"What did they inject him with?" asked the medic who was controlling the genius' breathing as the other wrapped peach medical tape around the tube that came to rest against the corner of his mouth and seated between his teeth.
"Sodium thiopental," answered Emily. The medic grimaced.
"Shit. There's no reversal for it. Did he get the full dose?" JJ glanced at the discarded syringe on the floor and crouched down to pick it up.
"No," responded JJ, handing the syringe over to the medics.
"Okay, that's good. The normal dose in lethal injections is five milligrams. As he hasn't had the entire dose, it's not going to be as likely to kill him, but it has put him into a coma. All we can do is take control of his breathing and get him to the hospital where they can properly ventilate him and wait for the drug to metabolise. We're going to have to move quickly though, and we will need someone to come and help us as it's crucial someone keeps squeezing this bag whilst one of us drives and the other completes the assessment. Luckily, the nearest hospital is less than ten miles away and we can get there in a matter of minutes." Emily nodded and turned her attention to JJ.
"I think you should go with him," suggested Emily, her voice low, eyes filled with guilt. JJ immediately understood her task and took over the medic in assisting her best friend with his breathing. The medics bundled Spencer up into a hammock carry and lifted him onto the stretcher they had dragged in with them. The pulled the straps over Spencer's legs and chest to keep him in place. A bruised wrist hung limply over the side of the stretcher.
"It might be best if you climb on and straddle his hips so you can keep up," suggested the medic who briefly took over the breathing so that the agent could climb up onto the stretcher, her knees either side of Spencer's hips. She clung to the cold metal rail with hand to keep her balance and squeezed the bag with the other. The stretcher was whisked away in a blur of colour.
24/06/2019. 22:18 hours. Ambulance on route to St Mary's Hospital, California.
Straddling another man would be extremely uncomfortable for most married women, yet for JJ, it did not. After all, Spencer was her best friend, her brother, and she would do whatever it took to save him. She took a moment to absorb everything. A neat cut snaked through the pale pink flesh of his bottom lip. His stubbled and angled jaw had turned shades of black, purple and blue. Blood had dried around his nostrils and over his lips. The skin around his mouth was red and inflamed. Deep purple handprints marred the skin of his neck. His wrists were ringed with more bruising and littered with cuts that had long since stopped bleeding. The dark circles around his closed eyes were much more pronounced than ever before. His cheeks were blotchy from his tears. The ever-present crease had deepened between his furrowed brows. It broke JJ's heart to see Spencer held captive and comatose again in less than a year since his train accident. He had struggled so much with his mental health afterwards, so she could only imagine how much being held captive and raped in prison would destroy his psyche. She hated herself for thinking it, but she knew that there was no going back from this, and this would probably break Spencer forever.
